gcalcli is a Python application that allows you to access your Google Calendar(s) from a command line. It's easy to get your agenda, search for events, quickly add new events, and even import those annoying vCal invites from Microsoft Exchange. Additionally, gcalcli can be used as a reminder service to execute any application you want.
Check your OS Distribution for packages.
- Python 2
- Google's GData Python 2 module
- dateutil Python module
- vobject Python module
- A love for the command line!
- list your calendars
- show an agenda using a specified start/end date and time
- ascii text graphical calendar display with variable width
- search for past and/or future calendar events
- "quick add" new events to a specified calendar
- "add" a new event to a specified calendar (interactively or automatically)
- import events from ICS/VCAL files to a specified calendar
- easy integration with your favorite mail client (attachment handler)
- run as a cron job and execute a command for reminders
- work against specific calendars (by calendar type or calendar name regex)
- config file support for specifying option defaults
- colored output and unicode character support
- super fun hacking with shell scripts, cron, screen, tmux, conky, etc
gcalcli [options] command [command args]
Options:
--help this usage text
--version version information
--config <file> config file to read (default is '~/.gcalclirc')
--user <username> google username
--pw <password> password
--cals [all, 'calendars' to work with (default is all calendars)
default, - default (your default main calendar)
owner, - owner (your owned calendars)
editor, - editor (editable calendar)
contributor, - contributor (non-owner but able to edit)
read, - read (read only calendars)
freebusy] - freebusy (only free/busy info visible)
--cal <name>[#color] 'calendar' to work with (default is all calendars)
- you can specify a calendar by name or by substring
which can match multiple calendars
- you can use multiple '--cal' arguments on the
command line
- in the config file specify multiple calendars in
quotes separated by commas as:
cal: "foo", "bar", "my cal"
- an optional color override can be specified per
calendar using the ending hashtag:
--cal "Eric Davis"#green --cal foo#red
or via the config file:
cal: "foo"#red, "bar"#yellow, "my cal"#green
--24hr show all dates in 24 hour format
--detail-all show event details in the 'agenda' output
--detail-location (i.e. all, location, length, reminders, description)
--detail-length the description width defaults to 80 characters
--detail-reminders
--detail-descr
--detail-descr-width
--ignore-started ignore old or already started events
- when used with the 'agenda' command, ignore events
that have already started and are in-progress with
respect to the specified [start] time
- when used with the 'search' command, ignore events
that have already occurred and only show future
events
--width the number of characters to use for each column in
the 'calw' and 'calm' command outputs (default is 10)
--mon week begins with Monday for 'calw' and 'calm' command
outputs (default is Sunday)
--nc don't use colors
--conky use conky color escapes sequences instead of ansi
terminal color escape sequences (requires using
the 'execpi' command in your conkyrc)
--cal-owner-color specify the colors used for the calendars and dates
--cal-editor-color each of these argument requires a <color> argument
--cal-contributor-color which must be one of [ default, black, brightblack,
--cal-read-color red, brightred, green, brightgreen, yellow,
--cal-freebusy-color brightyellow, blue, brightblue, magenta,
--date-color brightmagenta, cyan, brightcyan, white,
--border-color brightwhite ]
--tsv tab-separated output for 'agenda'. Format is:
'date' 'start' 'end' 'title' 'location' 'description'
--locale <locale> set a custom locale (i.e. 'de_DE.UTF-8'). Check the
supported locales of your system first.
--reminder <mins> number of minutes to use when setting reminders for
the 'quick' and 'add' commands; if not specified,
Google code's default behavior occurs: no reminder is
set (documented, incorrectly, otherwise: as using the
default for the calendar, but this does not actually
happen)
--title <title> event details used by the 'add' command
--where <location> - the duration is specified in minutes
--when <datetime> - make sure to quote strings with spaces
--duration <#> - the datetime format is 'MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM'
--descr <description> - the '--reminder' option can be specified as well
Commands:
list list all calendars
search <text> search for events
- only matches whole words
agenda [start] [end] get an agenda for a time period
- start time default is 12am today
- end time default is 5 days from start
- example time strings:
'9/24/2007'
'Sep 24 2007 3:30pm'
'2007-09-24T15:30'
'2007-09-24T15:30-8:00'
'20070924T15'
'8am'
calw <weeks> [start] get a week based agenda in a nice calendar format
- weeks is the number of weeks to display
- start time default is beginning of this week
- note that all events for the week(s) are displayed
calm [start] get a month agenda in a nice calendar format
- start time default is the beginning of this month
- note that all events for the month are displayed
and only one month will be displayed
quick <text> quick add an event to a calendar
- if a --cal is not specified then the event is
added to the default calendar
- example:
'Dinner with Eric 7pm tomorrow'
'5pm 10/31 Trick or Treat'
add add a detailed event to a calendar
- if a --cal is not specified then the event is
added to the default calendar
- example:
gcalcli --title 'Analysis of Algorithms Final'
--where UCI
--when '12/14/2012 10:00'
--duration 60
--descr 'It is going to be hard!'
--reminder 30
add
import [-v] [file] import an ics/vcal file to a calendar
- if a --cal is not specified then the event is
added to the default calendar
- if a file is not specified then the data is read
from standard input
- if -v is given then each event in the file is
displayed and you're given the option to import
or skip it, by default everything is imported
quietly without any interaction
remind <mins> <command> execute command if event occurs within <mins>
minutes time ('%s' in <command> is replaced with
event start time and title text)
- <mins> default is 10
- default command:
'gxmessage -display :0 -center \
-title "Ding, Ding, Ding!" %s'
You can provide gcalcli with your Google Calendar login information via one of the following:
- on the command line using the --user and --pw options
- the config file
- or interactively when prompted
In any case make sure you protect the information. It is highly recommended you turn on Google's 2-Step Verification and use different application specific passwords for each system you're using gcalcli on.
gcalcli will automatically work with an HTTP Proxy simply by setting up some environment variables used by the gdata Python module:
http_proxy
https_proxy
proxy-username or proxy_username
proxy-password or proxy_password
Note that these environment variables must be lowercase.
gcalcli is able to read default configuration information from a config file. This file is location, by default, at '~/.gcalclirc' and must be formatted as follows:
[gcalcli]
<config-option>: <value>
<config-option>: <value>
...
The available config items are the same as those that can be specified on the command line. Note that any value specified on the command line overrides the config file.
user: <username>
pw: <password>
cals: <type>
cal: <name>[#color], <name>[#color], ...
24hr: <true|false>
detail-all: <true|false>
detail-location: <true|false>
detail-length: <true|false>
detail-reminders: <true|false>
detail-descr: <true|false>
detail-descr-width: <width>
ignore-started: <true|false>
width: <width>
mon: <true|false>
nd: <true|false>
cal-owner-color: <color>
cal-editor-color: <color>
cal-contributor-color: <color>
cal-read-color: <color>
cal-freebusy-color: <color>
date-color: <color>
border-color: <color>
locale: <locale>
reminder: <mins>
Note that you can specify a shell command and the output will be the value for the config variable. A shell command is determined if the first character is a backtick (i.e. '`'). An example is pulling a password from gpg:
pw: `gpg --decrypt ~/mypw.gpg`
Importing events from files is easy with gcalcli. The 'import' command accepts a filename on the command line or can read from standard input. Here is a script that can be used as an attachment handler for Thunderbird or in a mailcap entry with Mutt (or in Mutt you could just use the attachment viewer and pipe command):
#!/bin/bash
TERMINAL=urxvtc
CONFIG=~/.gcalclirc
$TERMINAL -e bash -c "echo 'Importing invite...' ; \
gcalcli --config=$CONFIG import -v \"$1\" ; \
read -p 'press enter to exit: '"
Note that with Thunderbird you'll have to have the 'Show All Body Parts' extension installed for seeing the calendar attachments when not using 'Lightning'. See this bug report for more details.
Run gcalcli using cron and generate xmessage-like popups for reminders.
% crontab -e
Then add the following line:
*/10 * * * * gcalcli remind
Put your agenda on your desktop using Conky. The '--conky' option causes gcalcli to output Conky color sequences. Note that you need to use the Conky 'execpi' command for the gcalcli output to be parsed for color sequences. Add the following to your .conkyrc:
${execpi 300 gcalcli --conky agenda}
To also get a graphical calendar that shows the next three weeks add:
${execpi 300 gcalcli --conky --cals=owner calw 3}
Put your next event in the left of your 'tmux' status line. Add the following to your tmux.conf file:
set-option -g status-interval 60
set-option -g status-left "#[fg=blue,bright]#(gcalcli agenda | head -2 | tail -1)#[default]"
Put your next event in your 'screen' hardstatus line. First add a cron job that will dump you agenda to a text file:
% crontab -e
Then add the following line:
*/5 * * * * gcalcli --nc --ignore-started agenda "`date`" > /tmp/gcalcli_agenda.txt
Next create a simple shell script that will extract the first agenda line. Let's call this script 'screen_agenda':
#!/bin/bash
head -2 /tmp/gcalcli_agenda.txt | tail -1
Next configure screen's hardstatus line to gather data from a backtick command. Of course your hardstatus line is most likely very different than this (Mine is!):
backtick 1 60 60 screen_agenda
hardstatus "[ %1` ]"